Stay
by E Salvatore
Summary: Really, she should've done it weeks ago. But Maleficent's never been good at letting people go, and she's especially bad at setting one particular raven loose, it seems.


**STAY**

**Summary : Really, she should've done it weeks ago. But Maleficent's never been good at letting people go, and she's especially bad at setting one particular raven loose, it seems.**

**Disclaimer : I know you, I owned the rights to you and changed the ending to suit my shipper needs once upon a dream… but no, Maleficent isn't mine.**

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><p>She agonizes over it for weeks.<p>

Or so Aurora tells her.

"Agonizing? My, what big words they've taught you in that castle of yours." She mocks good-naturedly. Aurora smiles knowingly at her godmother.

"Say all you want, godmother, I won't let you distract me. You _are _agonizing over it. Every spare moment you've had this past month, you've spent staring at a tree or a puddle or the clouds, and you only do that when you're thinking. Otherwise you would've treated the tree or dried up the puddle or flown up into the clouds." The queen looks a bit too smug, as if her logic is sound.

"Not every tree needs healing, _why _would I waste my time drying up puddles and sometimes the weather isn't suited for flying, beastie." Maleficent sighs, doing an admirable job of pretending to be bored.

Aurora suddenly loses her smile.

"There's no point in drawing it out, you know. It's not going to change whatever it is he'll choose to do once you tell him." She has her hands folded primly in her lap, her lips devoid of a smile and for once, her eyes aren't impossibly wide with some sort of emotion. It's as serious a look as Aurora can manage.

Maleficent turns away and finds herself staring at… a tree, damn it. She deliberately averts her gaze so that her eyes settle upon some wildflowers. There, Aurora hadn't mentioned those in her little rant.

Still, she knows that her little queen has a point. It's been more than a month now, nearly six weeks. In the beginning, she hadn't given it much thought. She had been made aware of it, of course. A life-debt was an important thing, a thing of old magic. For nearly eighteen years, she'd felt its presence in her blood, binding them together. Magic saw all and magic kept track, magic knew what debts were owed and magic remembered those that remained unpaid.

The moment she'd opened her eyes the morning after the great battle, she had noticed the absence of that particular string of magic. She had been distracted when it had happened, and too tired after to notice. But that morning she woke and the very first thing she'd felt, even before relishing in the sensation of sore wings pressing upon her back, had been the loss of their bond. Magic saw all and magic kept track, and as soon as he'd saved her life, magic had considered the debt repaid and had severed their connection.

She doesn't think he's noticed it. As far as she knows, he'd never felt the bond in the first place. But it had weighed upon her that morning, and every morning since. She'd been able to push the matter to the back of her mind in the first few weeks, when they'd had the castle to escape and Aurora to coronate and kingdoms to fix, but now that the fuss surrounding the new queen has settled and the new-found peace between two lands has been accepted by all, Maleficent has had a lot of time to think on this. More time than she would like, actually.

"Godmother?" Aurora calls, demanding her attention. "Were you even _listening _to me?" The young girl scowls. "I said-"

Maleficent turns to look at her. "I know." She says softly, barely more than a whisper. She does not speak again, and Aurora leaves it at that.

.

.

.

.

.

"It's wrong, you know, what you're doing to him." Knotgrass mutters, hiding under a mushroom.

"I wouldn't say wrong," Thistlewit stammers from where she's hovering behind a rock. "But it… isn't very fair."

"Maybe we're being too harsh on her." Flittle tells her two companions, a half-hearted attempt at defending their former antagonist. She's tucked away behind a sunflower, angled _just so _to keep herself out of Maleficent's sight.

The faerie in question glares at the pixies. "_What _are you three even doing here?" She asks sharply, and the three of them jump two feet into the air, scatter about in nervous, frantic flight and finally disappear from her sight.

They don't go far, unfortunately. The wind carries their conversation from within the small rose bush a few feet away to her ears.

"It's not right!" Knotgrass insists.

"Well, I guess it's not very nice of her…" Thistlewit muses.

"I don't think it's our place to judge." Flittle sniffs, displaying a diplomatic side Maleficent hadn't been aware of. "Besides, he's been with her for eighteen years now, hasn't he? Maybe he doesn't _want _to leave."

That shuts the other two up for a while. Even Maleficent is shocked into silence for a full fifteen seconds, until her lungs protest and she inhales sharply to make up for lost air.

"But _why _would he want-"

Maleficent flies off before Knotgrass can finish her snide comment and effectively sign her own death warrant.

.

.

.

.

.

She flies for a very long time and doesn't return to land until he finds her and tries to join her. Maleficent ducks into the woods and calmly walks away, but the raven persists in following her, flying circles around her until she finally turns him into a man.

"What is it?" She snaps, keeping him out of her sight even as he walks next to her.

"Feels like maybe I should be the one asking you that." He says, speeding up just a bit so that now he's in front of her, blocking her way.

"_I'm _not the one who-" The faerie has a retort somewhere in the back of her mind, but it dies on her tongue when she finally looks at him. She's never seen him with bags under his eyes, even in those early days when he'd insisted on keeping watch over baby Aurora all night long. He looks so tired, and pale too.

"Is something wrong with you?" Maleficent asks instead. He ignores her.

"You've been avoiding me." The raven-man accuses. She huffs impatiently.

"Answer the question, Diaval." She snaps, earning herself an infuriating smirk.

"Is that an order, _Mistress_?" It's almost a taunt, definitely mocking. Those thrice-damned pixies must've blabbed to him. Or maybe Aurora, who probably thought she was being clever by dropping some not-so-subtle hints to push the raven into confronting her godmother. The girl is as subtle as Balthazar's entire army trying to blend into stone walls.

She does not dignify his mocking with an answer. Diaval seems to have expected it, because he does not wait for one before he speaks once more. "Why are you avoiding me?"

"I am _not_," She insists. The look he shoots her is irritating. She's almost tempted to turn him into a worm. Worms don't have expressions or irritatingly smug looks, do they?

"I'll prove it." Maleficent says. "Would you like to join me for a walk, Diaval?" She offers graciously.

"Oh, I'd love to." He responds immediately. The absence of the word _mistress _at the end of his sentence doesn't go unnoticed.

"Fine." She snaps childishly.

"Fine." He echoes with a grin, offering her his arm. She brushes past and walks ahead, decidedly _not _checking to see if he's following.

He is.

At first, she storms ahead and he lets her, trailing behind. A few minutes pass and she slows into a brisk walk, at which point he decides to catch up to her. He says nothing when she stops here and there to heal a tree or coax fruit-bearing plants into blooming. He keeps quiet every time his arm brushes against hers and she lets out an annoyed huff. It's as awkward a situation as they've ever been in, and it gets worse when he hooks his arm around hers and beams at her when she doesn't react to it.

_He's been with her for eighteen years now, hasn't he? _Flittle had said. _Maybe he doesn't _want _to leave._

The pixie's words echo within her mind apropos of nothing, and she abruptly pulls away from Diaval. That's it. She has to do this now, before she starts taking Flittle's words seriously. The pixie might have her ridiculous little daydreams but Maleficent won't have any part in them. Best to send him away now, before she tricks herself into thinking…

Besides, Aurora was right. All the time in the world won't change what he'll do once she tells him. So she'll tell him now. She fights the urge to inhale deeply, to brace herself. Diaval watches curiously, standing by her side. She turns so that she is facing him.

"You are free to go." She states clearly, looking him in the eye. Her heart hammers away in her chest, beating out a rhythm so fast it hurts. How do hummingbirds live with this pain?

When he doesn't immediately react to her words, she averts her gaze to… damn it, a tree. Why is it always a tree?

Maleficent clears her suddenly dry throat. "You've been free to go for a very long time now." She adds, thinking that maybe those words will prompt him into walking away. It really hasn't been fair of her, to keep him for so long. He should leave. He should curse her out and walk away, or demand something in recompense for the unnecessary six weeks she'd tricked him into spending by her side.

He hooks their arms together once more and starts walking, pulling her along.

"I know." He says simply, and she's too shocked to say anything else.

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In the morning, she finds him by the lake. He offers her a handful of berries. She sinks down next to him and fixes her eyes on their reflection, trying to speak past the lump in her throat.

"You'll stay, then?" She finally asks. Her voice had trembled, just the slightest bit. She won't let herself think on it.

Diaval's reflection smiles at her. He takes her hand into his own and pries her loose fist open to pass the berries to her. She hesitantly leans into him, watches the way her dark hair and clothes seem to blend with his until it's nearly impossible to tell them apart.

"I'll stay."

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><p><strong>Yeah, another one of <strong>_**those **_**fics. I'm sure everyone's had enough of **_**Maleficent trying to free Diaval and Diaval stubbornly staying**_** by now, but I figured this was a safe choice for a first attempt at a Maleficent fic. Maybe I'll branch out and try something original if I don't grow horribly embarrassed by this a week from now.**

**Oh, and hello! It's nice to finally make contact with the people in this fandom. You all seem so nice and talented and friendly. I know this because I've been lurking. Lurking, always watching… Oops. Was that too much? I hope I haven't scared anyone away. Shout-out in the reviews if you're still around! … Look at me being all casual and cool and begging for feedback like the sad, lonely person that I am. **

_**E Salvatore,**_

_**October 2014.**_


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